SOLD: Mouna Ayoub’s auction of the crème de la crème of her vast collection of Chanel haute couture was a hit.
Maurice Auction sold all 252 lots on Monday night at the Pavillon Gabriel in Paris, netting 1.5 million euros, with one evening coat — embroidered by Lesage to resemble the ornate Coromandel screens that founder Gabrielle Chanel so treasured — fetching 312,000 euros, according to a spokeswoman for the sale.
The star lot, the coat was estimated to fetch between 150,000 and 200,000 euros.
Ayoub said she wore it only once — to attend an opera at La Scala in Milan. It was from Chanel’s fall 1996 haute couture collection.
Other lots on offer included dresses, suits, shoes, jewelry, belts and even a wig with an ankle-length ponytail that Shalom Harlow rocked on the runway, dated from 1990 to 2014. Some of the garments took up to 800 hours of handwork to be realized.
In an interview last week, Ayoub said she was parting ways with her beloved Chanels because they don’t fit her any more.
Also, “I really want to give the young generation that didn’t know Karl and didn’t have the chance to own any haute couture pieces by Karl to own them and wear them and love them like I did,” she told WWD.
Ayoub took loving care of her exceptional Chanels, purchasing many of them for their sheer beauty and exceptional craftsmanship. All were stored in museum-calibre storage conditions.
She plans to donate part of the proceeds from the sale to Fondation des Femmes, an organization that champions women’s rights and freedom, while combatting violence against them.
A well-known society figure and jet-setter originally hailing from Lebanon, Ayoub works in real estate, buying and selling properties in the U.S. — and plowing the lion’s share of her gains into her bulging, gently used couture wardrobe.
She still possesses about 2,500 haute couture pieces — and more are on the way. She has orders in progress at Chanel, Schiaparelli, Fendi and Dior.